A photographer next to a burnt out police patrol car outside Alliance party MP Naomi Long's office in east Belfast. Photograph: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images

The violent street disorder destabilising Northern Ireland will be debated on Tuesday in the House of Commons.

The Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, has confirmed MPs will be given a chance to debate the weeklong disturbances linked to the union flag dispute at Belfast city hall, which she described as "totally unacceptable".

"It is incredibly important that those involved listen to the political leadership," she said.

David Cameron and his government have been criticised for failing to speak out about the seven days of rioting and intimidation, most of which has been directed at the centrist Alliance party.

Loyalists blame Alliance for backing a compromise motion at Belfast city council that ended its policy of flying the union flag all year round. Alliance holds the balance of power between unionists and nationalists on the council.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said the petrol bombing of the vehicle was an attempt to murder two of its officers.

Her party leader, the Northern Ireland justice minister, David Ford, said it was time the prime minister to issue a statement about the attacks on Alliance personnel and their premises. Ford alsosaid the security forces needed to face down the loyalist rioters behind the violence.

Ford, clearly angry, claimed that as of Monday night David Cameron had not returned his phone call, in which he wanted to raise his deepening concern about the loyalist disorder.

He added: "What we need is an assurance that the government takes the threat which is currently faced democracy in Northern Ireland seriously – that it doesn't think that the only threats come from republicans, that it's prepared to ensure that the resources are supplied to face down these protests."

The justice minister said this was "not about peaceful protest any more". It was about "deliberate targeting".

As well as violence directed towards the Alliance party, the rioting has taken an increasingly sectarian tone with attacks on the Catholic enclave of the Short Strand in East Belfast and an assault on a bar owned by the husband of a Sinn Féin councillor in Armagh City overnight.